I am not a big fisherman, but when I used to go with my grandfather years ago, the one thing he always would say is “fishing isn’t supposed to require effort.” He would tell me that the fish always knew when you were stressed, and that relaxing would help me catch more fish, but also make it more fun. Thinking back, I probably hooked him more than I did fish, but what I did enjoy was when we used a trotline to catch them, because it was a lot easier to catch more at once and, most importantly, without having to cast continually. You simply bait multiple hooks all attached to a long line prior to setting it up in the water, and you were able to sit back and check back periodically to see what you caught. This was great because there was no need to cast time after time, and in my case, not get anything on the hook.

This could not be more relevant to a tool that we now use when prospecting on the various social networks we use to connect with people everyday. Colabo is the trotline when it comes to prospecting. An example is how we target folks who use LinkedIn. Some people are job hunting or building their online resume. Others are wanting to catch up on news relevant to their interests (business or otherwise). And then there are those who are looking to market their products or services to those two groups.

If you happen to be on LinkedIn, then I am sure you have been a part of at least one of these groups, but most likely have interacted with all 3. For the salespeople who use it as a tool to get in front of as many people as possible, I will share how you can increase the efficiency of your efforts by using Colabo, and turn your one-on-one InMails into more of a trotline to start filling your pipeline.

Here are 5 ways Colabo can help you catch more fish…

Send mass, but personalized messages with one button – One feature of Colabo that you will see an immediate benefit is the ability to send messages to your entire audience, but have it look like it is a personlized message to each prospect. On the leads tab in the application, you can select prospects that would all match the criteria to be sent the same message, but instead of a long list of recipients on your message, each prospect receives an individual InMail that is personalized with their name and/or company name.

Filter your audience to get the right message in the right hands – With Colabo’s filter feature, you can select from criteria such as actions taken against your LinkedIn messages (it tracks unanswered v answered messages), if you have sent them an connection invite on LinkedIn, and even things such as job title, company, and how long they have been a prospect of yours. This will save you the headache of looking through your prospects and addressing them 1 by 1.

View your history of interaction with your prospect – Yes, we all know there is a record of messages you have sent and received in most applications, but the timeline feature in Colabo will show you the complete chronological list of all interactions across platforms (emails, LinkedIn messages, CRM activity, etc.). There is also an option to add notes about those interactions so you can know what to talk about next, without ever having to leave the Colabo application.

Add your leads to a nurturing campaign – In sales, there is no company I know of that has a 100% success rate with prospecting. And if you work there, please share your secrets. But for those that do have misses, or people that aren’t quite ready to convert, having a digital marketing strategy to stay top of mind while also tracking your prospects’ actions is the next best thing. With Colabo, there is an integration with Eloqua that will let you add those prospects to a segment that will be automatically marketed to in order to stay relevant. WIth the rules you establish to capture their digital body language (or actions taken against the marketing you put out), you can then reach out to them once the time is right.

Push the leads found directly into your CRM – And finally, if you are tracking leads within a CRM, having to do it in multiple places is not ideal. Salespeople want multiple ways to source leads, but it kills time to have to document where and how each lead was acquired. We use Oracle Sales Cloud ourselves, and the ability to push all of the same leads we have in Colabo to Sales Cloud eliminates the need to have to document each interaction in both applications, thus saving time and allowing sales to do their jobs instead of entering data. You can still view the information captured in Colabo while in your CRM, so the information will never have to be chased down.

For those thinking of activities that will provide the most return when it comes to sales, Colabo is something that can increase the amount of prospects you reach in less time. There are plenty of ways you can increase you efforts (working extra hours, making more calls, sending more messages, etc.), but remember working smarter and And just like fishing, prospects do not always come without a fight, but Colabo acts as a wider net and fish finder all in one. Getting someone’s attention is just the beginning, but wouldn’t it be nice to have a full pipeline and decide which opportunities are keepers and which ones you can throw back?

For more information on Colabo, please contact us at info@sfcg.com for details.